Why did Neo4j change it's name to Neo5j?

Question

They just announced, they changed their name to Neo5j.

I always thought that 4j meant for-Java. And as Neo4j is implemented in Java and Scala and the ~4j suffix has been highly popular (in the 90's) it never occurred to me that the 4j and now 5j is actually a version denomination.

But it seems common in database circles to use that number + letter versioning scheme, like Oracle does with 9i, 11g and 12c.

Now the question is what does the 5j stand for? The article doesn't answer it. Can anyone help me resolve this?

Answer 1

The Neo series of databases was developed in Sweden and attracted the 'j' suffix with the release of version 4 of the graph database. The 'j' is from the word 'jätteträd', literally "giant tree", and was used to indicate the huge data structures that could now be stored.

Incidentally the 'neo' portion of the name is a nod to a Swedish pop artist Linus Ingelsbo, who goes by the name NEO. In Neo1 the example graph was singers and bands and featured the favourite artists of the developers, including NEO. This was changed to the movie data set in the version 4 release.

Answer 2

The name neo5j is an April Fools joke - don't be fooled!